{"id":28952,"date":"2012-08-03T08:28:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-03T08:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=28952 "},"modified":"2012-08-03T08:28:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T08:28:00","slug":"28952-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=28952","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Activist Chen Guangcheng Meets with US Congress Members"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; background:white\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial; background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; \">C<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial; background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; \">APITOL HILL &#8212; Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident, attended a close-door meeting with some top U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; \"><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">House Speaker John Boehner held the rare bipartisan meeting, joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other U.S. legislators. &nbsp;<\/span><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">In a short press conference before the meeting, Chen expressed strong concerns for his nephew, Chen Kegui, who has been arrested by Chinese authorities. He said the arrest of Chen Kegui is essentially a continuance of his own case.<\/span><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">The United States raised Chen&#8217;s case during the 17<\/span><span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \"><sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;US-China Human Rights Dialogue, also expressing concerns about the arrest of his nephew.<\/span><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">Chen said Chinese central government officials have not contacted him for any progress on the open investigation they promised to conduct when he escaped to Beijing from his home town Shandong, where he was held in house arrest.<\/span><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">&#8220;If a case as high-profile as mine cannot be properly handled in accordance with Chinese law and with international legal norms,&#8221; Chen said, &#8220;how are we able to believe that China will respect human rights and the rule of law?&#8221;<\/span><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">Chen said the human rights situation in China is deteriorating, which had led to an increasing number of people whose rights have been violated to rise up and protest. &#8220;Change in China is inevitable.&#8221; he said.<\/span><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">Chen hopes the United States and other democratic nations can support and assist with a smooth transition in China.<\/span><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">House Speaker Boehner said the United States cannot remain silent when fundamental human rights are being violated.<\/span><br \/> <br \/> <span style=\"background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">&#8220;When it comes to guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of all of her citizens, the Chinese government has a responsibility to do better. And the United States government has a responsibility to hold them to account,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/span><\/p>  <p style=\"margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; background:white\">&nbsp;<\/p>  <p style=\"margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; background:white\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; color: #2d2d2d; background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">Continue reading&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.voanews.com\/content\/blind-chinese-activist-chen-meets-with-us-lawmakers\/1452864.html\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial; color: #034af3; background-color: white; text-decoration: none; font-size: 12pt; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">original article<\/span><\/strong><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Arial; color: #2d2d2d; background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; \">.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>  <p style=\"margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; background:white\">&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;p style=&quot;margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; background:white&quot;&gt;&lt;\/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;The blind human rights activist met with the lawmakers in a closed door bi-partisan meeting. Immediately prior to the meeting Chen spoke to the media to express his concern for his nephew, who Chen says was arrested and continues to be held to punish Chen.&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}